Several devices are being marketed as towel warmers or baby diaper warmers. Other devices are marketed as room heaters. Still other devices have been invented which are designed to provide warm towels as in health clubs. In some instances warm moist clothes are provided.
A number of devices have been proposed for warming towels, primarily as a comfort issue, rather than reducing mildew in the bathroom environment. U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,243 to Tedioli incorporated herein by reference, discloses a heater and drier for bathrooms that uses resistive heating elements and a blower fan. Floor mounting and wall mounting versions are disclosed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,309 by M. Cayley, incorporated herein by reference, discloses an electric towel warmer having heated plates over which towels are placed and a cover to retain heat. A similar design is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,995 by Lovett and Lovett which has a hinged cover and wall mounted heating chamber. A portable towel heating devices is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,290 by DeMars comprised of a cabinet having an internal blower-heater. U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,026 by Groom and Groom discloses a combination heating and moistening device for towels.
Bulky and/or fragile articles of clothing are often hand washed and/or hand dried. Conventional drying methods are too harsh and leave the articles misshapen, shrunk or snagged. Such clothing is often hand rinsed, rung out by hand and layed out on a towel or hung over a hanger, curtain rod, or clothesline to dry by convection. This is very inefficient and disruptive of space.
Sweater drying devices have been developed to address this need. For example a collapsible drying rack is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Design No. 315,432 by Smith and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,602 by Krill a drying frame is indicated. Most racks take up space, are bulky, and/or slow in action. There is therefore a need to provide a device and method for delivery of low, sustainable heat evenly over a surface large enough to spread out the articles of clothing as sweaters, towels, women's hosiery, lingerie, and the like. At the same time, such a device should be economical to produce and safe to operate.
There are a number of approaches to providing low sustained heat that are self-limiting so as to not present a fire hazard. One approach is to provide a temperature sensor external to the heating element and as part of a control loop as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,297 by Lowenberg. Another approach is to have the element itself of sufficiently high resistance so that current flow is limited. Such an approach is exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,895 by Nishino et al. for their floor mat heater and in the sheet heaters developed by Grise of Flexwatt Corporation. Grise's U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,656,339 and 4,485,297 relating to an electrical resistance heater are incorporated herein by reference. The later technology is that adapted to the preferred embodiment of the present invention.